Amazing journey poses questions for Tassie industry

Mystic Journey (Needs Further) created a remarkable piece of history when she took on the country's best 3-year-olds and won the Australian Guineas becoming the first-ever Tasmanian-trained and bred horse to win a Group 1 race.

It was hailed as a watershed moment, not only for racing in the island state, but also for the Tasmanian breeding industry, with the outstanding filly from the second crop of local stallion Needs Further, standing at Armidale Stud, out of a mare that was based on the farm for Victorian breeder Ralph Zito.

Three weeks later, that sense of transformation for a Tassie racing and breeding industry which had long been 'off broadway', exploded when the Adam Trinder-trained Mystic Journey went on to capture the inaugural All-Star Mile, a $5 million race.

An $11,000 Tassie filly holding off a pair of runners from the world's biggest racing operation in Godolphin was the sort of rags-to-riches story that racing folk love and spoke to the age-old Tasmanian narrative of a state 'punching above its weight'.

But a year later, while there is certainly a greater awareness of the quality of Tasmanian horses, and this week's Magic Millions Tasmanian Sale drew a stronger interstate buying bench than ever, propelling a record average and aggregate, what has really changed?

Two of the key figures in the Mystic Journey story, her owner Wayne Roser and Armidale Stud Managing Director David Whishaw, reflected on the significant challenges the Tasmanian industry faces, in spite of those watershed moments at Flemington last March.

The prizemoney challenge

There are things that Roser and Whishaw don’t agree on, but what shines through when you talk to both of them about what needs to happen to frank the momentum created by the success of Mystic Journey and other Tasmanian horses such as The Inevitable (Dundeel {NZ}), is a broader ownership base and increased prizemoney.

While there have been incentives put in place, such as the Tasbred bonus as well as access to Victoria's VOBIS scheme, base-level prizemoney has lagged significantly behind the rest of the country and as an owner, Roser feels that's a significant barrier to investment into the industry.

"They need to lift prizemoney," he said. "They spend money on social events, but they won’t invest in the industry.

"It’s a costly business to own a horse and have them trained and all that. They put forward the Tasbred bonus which is great but part of it goes to the breeder, the breeder has already got their money from breeding and selling the horse, but they still get this bonus through prizemoney, I think it all should go to owners."

That specific point about the bonus is probably not something Whishaw would subscribe to, but he too sees the threat posed by the lack of returns to owners via prizemoney.

"The base stakes has to increase to try and keep the local owners engaged," he said. "There's definitely a need to further engage new people, in particular, young people into racing down here."

Base prizemoney at a Hobart or Launceston meeting is $17,000. That lifts to a minimum of $20,000 for feature meetings such as Wednesday's Launceston Cup and Hobart's recent Cup meeting. Specific maiden and Class 1 races feature a state government subsidised Tasbred bonus of $16,000 for the owner and $4000 for the breeder.

The state government and Tasracing are expected to announce a prizemoney boost in the very near future which could go some of the way to addressing the issue. A significant chunk of that is expected to be funded by the recently implemented state-based Point Of Consumption Tax.

"Hopefully with the positive news in the Point Of Consumption Tax, we can see a nice injection of funds into prizemoney," Whishaw said. "I’d love to see the base stakes rise by 30-40 per cent, I think that combined with the new Tasbred scheme, will hopefully give new owners the confidence to not only invest at the sales, but also in breeding stock too."

However, POC taxes have not necessarily proven a panacea for industry funding elsewhere in Australia, and indeed, the imposition of them in larger jurisdictions has been attributed as a factor in an overall drop in the betting turnover that has fuelled previous prizemoney rises.

The talent drain

The other major concern both Roser and Whishaw share is the impact of the loss of so many of Tasmania's best-bred horses interstate, with such a strong representation from interstate buyers at the Tasmania Sale.

Just over 50 per cent of the 110 horses sold this week were purchased by interstate buyers, including six of the top seven lots.

"The challenge is that I feel it is pushing local owners out, because it is all interstate money. They come over here and are willing to pay big money and syndication is allowing that to occur. It makes it hard," Roser said.

The shallow nature of the local buying bench is what specifically concerns Whishaw, with those 54 horses purchased locally going to just 25 separate Tasmanian buyers.

"I think the only worrying thing to come out of the sale, and it might take me a while to really get my head around it, but on face value, I was a little bit concerned about the depth of the local buying bench," he said.

"My passion is seeing the Tassie industry succeed. And it’s wonderful to see us as breeders being received on a national stage but if we can’t keep some of our quality product here in Tassie, it won't improve the quality of racing down here.

"Our racing has strengthened, but if we see all our best stock going interstate, I think we might see it go downhill again and that worries me a little bit."

Not included in those local buyers were syndicators Star Thoroughbreds and Prime Thoroughbreds, who while based interstate, race and syndicate horses locally.

"We are really lucky to have Denise Martin from Star Thoroughbreds and Joe O'Neill from Prime Thoroughbreds. They are two very professional syndicators that not only support the sale, but syndicate and race those horses locally," Whishaw said.

The broodmare problem

But what particularly worries Whishaw is the lack of investment then flowing through the breeding industry, and in particularly broodmares, with Tasmania already having a significant shortage of quality stock to breed from.

"The Tassie product is racing well on the mainland and that obviously keeps the spotlight on the local product. It’s the best return for investment on any sale in Australia," he said.

"I think we will now see a bit of a consolidation phase down here. I think we had an outstanding buying bench from the mainland but we have to continue to improve our broodmare band and strengthen the breeding industry down here if we are to continue to get those investors to come down."

A case in point was when Armidale Stud took the decision to stand Alpine Eagle at its Carrick Stud in 2017. Understandably for a sire with a decent profile, he was marketed strongly and attracted a book of 106 in that first season.

On the surface, that was an outstanding result, but for fellow Armidale Stud stallion Needs Further, who had his first crop having just hit the track, including top Tasmanian 2-year-old Pateena Arena, his book dropped to a career low of 48 that year.

The subsequent emergence of Mystic Journey has seen his numbers rocket to triple figures last season, but when it came to offering his yearlings this week at Launceston, Whishaw knew he didn’t have enough stock to meet demand.

"With such a small number of broodmares in the state, launching a new stallion like Alpine Eagle in the state probably cost Needs Further 20 or 30 mares and the progeny of those would have been really well received here," he said.

Demand exceeding supply is a nice problem to have but finding the balance of getting the right mares in such a small pool is not easy.

The challenge of growth

Neither has been managing the growth of Armidale Stud over the past 12 months off the back of the increased demand for Needs Further and the arrival of Alpine Eagle's first few crops.

"We work hard and we want to lift the standard in Tassie. I strive to do that more than anything else. We are blessed to have a really good staff group. We’ve got more staff than we have ever had, and our business has experienced a lovely bit of growth, and with that comes a bit of pain," Whishaw said.

"Growth is your greatest opportunity, but potentially your biggest threat."

Given the above-mentioned questions over prizemoney, investment and the depth of both the buying bench and the broodmare band, it’s understandable that the state's biggest breeding operation is mindful of how it treads.

The buyer's perspective

From an owner investment point of view, Roser doesn't foresee a greater involvement for himself despite the success of Mystic Journey.

"We don’t change. We operate the same as we always have, from when we bought the first horse until where we are now," the former top Sydney barrister, who is now based on the north coast of Tasmania, said.

"Like all these things, it’s not all overnight success. You look at the other 40-50 horses we bought. They haven't all been successful. It’s easy to focus on one horse but you never know if you've got a good one until you get to the races."

Roser purchased three horses at Launceston this week, spending $62,000 in total, including $20,000 for a filly by Needs Further.

"We've got a couple from the stallion, so this is the third one, so hopefully she is as good as the other two," Roser said. "Adam (Trinder) liked her. She's not got much of a pedigree, but we really liked her."

The other two are of course Mystic Journey, and her three-quarter sister Mystical Pursuit, a dual stakes-winning filly who Roser thinks has plenty of upside.

"She might be the one to get to the Cox Plate this year," Roser said.

"Her second in the Strutt S. (when beaten narrowly by dominant filly Still A Star) was the first time over that distance and we rode her back and the way she finished off from the 600 metres was impressive. She's a really nice horse. A different type of horse, more of a street fighter."

Journey to resume

As for his star mare, having overcome a setback which ended her defence of the All-Star Mile, a race Roser is convinced she would have won again if right, she is being set for a shot at next month's G1 William Reid S. first-up before a possible trip to Group 1 sprints in Adelaide.

Roser is not completely ruling out another shot at a Cox Plate, a race she ran fourth in last year, but thinks she is probably best kept to races around the 1600 metre mark.

Roser said the ongoing relationship with Trinder, as opposed to the prospect of further Group 1 success at Flemington, is what keeps him involved.

"He's principled. The horse is the most important thing and he works 24 hours a day, seven days a week. When we won the PB Lawrence, and she was upset the Friday she arrived, he slept with her. I ran into James Cummings and he said he couldn't believe a trainer would do that. It’s total commitment," Roser said of his trainer.

It’s that old style commitment to craftsmanship and hard work that has driven a Tasmanian resurgence in all aspects of society, whether it be the quality of thoroughbred, the quality of local produce or the quality of life.

The greater challenge though is maintaining that attitude, while continuing to improve and grow. The opportunity is there, as is the quality, the next five years will tell if the local thoroughbred industry is ready to capitalise on that or allows itself to settle for less.